Jazz Artists

Various Jazz Artists

Norah Jones, Mary Halvorson, Ella Fitzgerald, Django Reinhardt, and Wynton Marsalis are a few jazz artists who were popular as far back as the 1930s until now.

Norah Jones is the daughter of Indian musician, Ravi Shankar.  Prior to college, Jones had won Down Beat’s Student Music Award for Best Jazz Vocalist and Best Original Composition.  Jones’ sound can vary from jazz blended with country, folk, soul, and pop.  Her vocal style is light-lyric soprano and has a soothing, breathy and husky sound, which is her signature trait.

Mary Halvorson is an avant-garde jazz guitarist known for her dexterous improvisation.  She dropped her science major to study jazz music.  She was influenced by Jimi Hendrix’s guitar style and grew up in a family who enjoyed jazz music.  Halvorson’s style on the guitar is hard-picking, nimble, and swooping.  She blends noise-rock and pedal-assisted pitch bends.

Ella Fitzgerald was the first African-American woman to win a Grammy Award and was first discovered at an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater.  She was known as the “America’s First Lady of Song.”  Fitzgerald was greatly influenced by bebop music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, incorporating be-bop rhythms in her singing style.  She used the scat bebop method in her song recorded in 1945, called "Flying Home."  Fitzgerald had a unique ability to mimic instrumental sounds, which helped popularize the vocal improvisation of scatting, which became her signature technique.